Essays on Church, State, and Politics (Natural Law and Enlightenment Classics) - Softcover

Thomasius, Christian

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865974993 ISBN 13: 9780865974999

Publisher: Liberty Fund, 2007

Synopsis

The essays selected here for translation derive largely from Thomasius’s work on Staatskirchenrecht, or the political jurisprudence of church law. These works, originating as disputations, theses, and pamphlets, were direct interventions in the unresolved issue of the political role of religion in Brandenburg-Prussia, a state in which a Calvinist dynasty ruled over a largely Lutheran population and nobility as well as a significant Catholic minority. In mandating limited religious toleration within the German states, the provisions of the Peace of Westphalia (1648) also provided the rulers of Brandenburg-Prussia with a way of keeping the powerful Lutheran church in check by guaranteeing a degree of religious freedom to non-Lutherans and thereby detaching the state from the most powerful territorial church. Thomasius’s writings on church-state relations, many of them critical of the civil claims made by Lutheran theologians, are a direct response to this state of affairs. At the same time, owing to the depth of intellectual resources at his disposal, these works constitute a major contribution to the broader discussion of the relation between the religious and political spheres.

Christian Thomasius (1655 1728) was a German philosopher and legal theorist. He was a cofounder of the University of Halle, where he was also a professor.

Ian Hunter is Australian Professorial Fellow in the Centre for the History of European Discourses, University of Queensland.

Frank Grunert is a member of the Institute for Philosophy at the University of Giessen.

Thomas Ahnert is a Lecturer in History at the University of Edinburgh.

Knud Haakonssen is Professor of Intellectual History at the University of Sussex, England.

About this title

About the Author

Thomas Ahnert is a lecturer in early modern intellectual history at the University of Edinburgh.

Review

Essays on Church, State, and Politics collects six texts of classic literature by German jurist, philosopher, reformer, and early advocate of separation of church and state, Christian Thomasius (1655-1728). Translated into English for the first time, Essays on Church, State, and Politics argues forcefully for religious tolerance while lauding the role of sovereign power to preserve secular peace. Chapters further discuss natural law, the condition of the universities, the extent and limits of princely power, and the questions of whether heresy and witchcraft should be considered crimes. A powerful advocational text of why the state should withdraw from judging morality yet maintain its right to oversee matters influencing social peace, Essays on Church, State, and Politics is overall as relevant today as it was virtually three hundred years ago.

The Midwest Book Review
August 2007

About this edition

• Publisher: Liberty Fund
• Publication date: 2007
• ISBN 10: 0865974993
• ISBN 13: 9780865974999
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 336
• Editor: Hunter Ian, Ahnert Thomas, Grunert Frank